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Thursday, 2 October 2008

ITHINK I HAVE FOUND work by another artist that is the closest thing to my own sensibilities that ever I have seen, and I'd like to show it to you ...A few months back I was given a little local Scottish magazine by a neighbour who thought a particular article in it might be up my street. And Oh it was. I read in there of a Russian kinetic theatre of wooden sculpture hidden in the heart of Glasgow. And two days ago I went to see it.

Down a narrow alleyway and round the corner was a door, and on the door was a drawing of a behatted crow with a bell in its beak. Behind the crow were stairs, and at the top of the stairs was the most unusual wonderland I could ever have hoped to come across. A roomful of contraptions, huge automata-like machines, moved by and moving small painted woodcarvings with hooked noses. There were endless wheels, cogs and clocks, old pieces of scrap, sections of sewing machines, typewriters and lawnmowers, bicycles and bells, and delightful characters ~ melancholic, strange and grotesque in the best possible of ways. Fat bellied mice, nuns and hunchbacks, clowns and skellingtons, monkeys with donkeyheads for hands, grinning jesters and snap-jawed monstrosities, bears, saints, artists and alchemists, monkeys with wayward willies, and organ-grinders and ravens of all sizes and sorts joined in a mechanical dance ~ macabre and humourous, sad and wise and utterly fascinating. They seemed to be telling me tales of the world turning, of lives and deaths and back again, of torture and spirituality, of the wheel and all its spokes. Lights shone on the pages of this kinetic story and took me from one character's part to the next, and all the while music played ... something from a far off circus, a dusty street musician, an echoing dungeon, a shtetl in winter.

Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre is the work of Russian artist Eduard Bersudsky. Born an outsider in St Petersburg in 1939, he is a self confessed black sheep or "white crow" as the Slavs say, who began his work amidst the struggles of Soviet Russia and and left in 1994 to settle in Scotland and bring with him his magnificent theatre. His work has been brought tirelessly into the public eye by Tatyana Jakovskaya, theatre director and critic who he met in 1987. Sharmanka (which means organ grinder or hurdy gurdy in Russian) has its base in Glasglow at present but a touring version can be seen here and there and elsewhere, and Eduard's works have been commisssioned to stand in various town centres, museums and private collections in places as far an wide as Scotland, Jerusalem, Russia, Denmark, America.

Eduard requests that he never see his audience nor they him, and speaks only a handful of English words. I was lucky enough however to meet him briefly and see his workshop and new piece in progress which will incorporate an old set of bellows into its heart. He is a man dedicated utterly to his work and collects like a magpie more bits and pieces of machinery to incorporate inside his creations, which have names like The Clock of Life, The Hunchback, The Tower of Babel, The Little Organ Grinder, Time of Rats, The Rag-n-Bone Man, Willy the Barrel Organ, Brainwashing Machine, The Tower of Medieval Sciences, The Leg, Eternal Triangle of Love, The Tree of Life, Druid's Clock, The Autumn Walk in the Belle Epoque of Perestroika ...

I cannot express adequately quite how in thrall I was to these little wooden men and the wheels that turned them. Bersudsky has been described as "an icon painter for our times" and that he is. Really it is impossible to convey in words how brilliant this kinetic theatre of woodcarvings is. You simply MUST go and see it. Even if you do not live in the UK ... get a plane, a boat, a train, a bicycle, a tricycle, a donkey, a snail, a unicycle! Just come to a show! They are on thursdays and sundays. Photographs cannot evoke the magic enough, so here are a few videos, but even they are like weak imitations compared with standing close to one of the beautiful Sharmanka machines as it creaks into life. Thank you Eduard.

Now, if your senses are not overloaded, I thought I'd invite another guest to this clockish automata-party: The Chronophage.It was recently brought to my attention that on my just gone birthday, a new and astonishing clock was unveiled in Cambridge. The invention of John Taylor, clockmaker and admirer of John Harrison, who solved the problem of longitude in the eighteenth century, is a 24-carat gold-plated clockwork clock, that keeps accurate time whilst showing that it time is relative. On top of the clock, time is measured out by the grasping legs of a demonic locust-like chronophage or time-eater.

Taylor says:

“Clocks are fixed, whereas we all know, time is fluid. It drags and it flies. Like Einstein said, an hour sitting next to a pretty girl can be like a minute, and a minute sitting on a hot stove can seem like an hour. I wanted this clock to reflect that, to play tricks with observers.”

Dr Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian at Corpus Christi, says:

“I wanted it to be a monster, because time itself is a monster . . . It is horrendous, and horrible, and beautiful. It reminds me of the locusts from the Book of Revelations. It lashes its tongue, and flicks its eyes at you. It’s bonkers.”

And here it is in action ...

So I leave you with all these lovely mad tickings and ringings of bells and will return soon with my own clock ... Once Upon O'Clock number 5.

43 comments:

Erin Gergen Halls
said...

i am numb.and yet tingling with electricity...

i will have in the corner of my mind all day, the realization that there are minds out there, like eduard's, that move a cog, and sets to motion a pulley that winds its way to my imagination, where a gear shifts, my hand moves pencil, and the bells and whistles go off on the paper.

I absolutely love sharmanka! I had a chance to visit before they went on tour (and then went to the lovely restaurant Cafe Cossachok (Have you been? It's a russian eaterie and they seem to have some relationship with Sharmanka)). I ask people in Glasow about Sharmanka all the time, but it seems to be very little-known wonderland....It is as you say utterly magical.

Oh, Rima, thank you SO much for telling us about this man and his extraordinary creations ! I have just watched two of the vids-saving the other two for tomorrow!-and find myself transported to other worlds.

Yowza, thanks for gathering all this in one place. the mind is boogled. You actually met Sharmanka, what did you say what did you do? Did you shake hands? Does he have real hands? What a treat. Yes, I have had a sale at my Etsy, and a commission, imagine!

Oh yes,Rima it is enchanting work, so magical. The millenium clock tower at the Royal museum in Edinburgh was created by four masters - one of whom was Bersudsky - for the Scottish Millennium Festival. My boy and i were bound for ages by its spell, the intricacy, the humor and its fairytale quality. so like your own work, beautiful. The clock has its very own web site and you can take a magical virtual tour around it. * ruthie*

I, I can't believe it. These are all things, roaming in my mind, I never can seem to put an actual face on my ideas though. My ideas are not concrete, and then I always see myself copying someone else's work. Wood is definately the prettiest medium for art I believe. This is nice stuff you've shown us, and I sure hope to visit the Sharmanka some day!

I was so excited alighting on your site today to find another post! Wow!!!! I'm transported, thank you so much for showing us the entrancing things... it's all just magical!I'm fascinated by time and anything to do with it. I shall pass all this to my brother who is a bench jeweller and clock-maker, I just know he'll love it.Thank you Rima and belated Happy Birthday felicitations!

I cannot thank you enough for sharing this with us as I may have never heard about it or seen it otherwise. I am all a'quiver just reading your description of the place and of the way leading up to it. I wish I could find a donkey or snail that could whisk me away to that place as this kind of work captures my imagination in a way that is really hard to describe. You obviously know what I mean because you've experienced it! Thank you so much!

I'm recovering from an operation, hence I'm stuck on my laptop trawling anything of interest including your wonderful blog. I need to say THANK YOU for finding and posting these, the models are so inspirational for my next show, which, now I have a great venue, hopefully is going to be bigger and better than anything I've done so far. The sounds of these in particular has sparked ideas for what can be done, as well as the puppets I need. Speak soon - probably about some ideas for witches/devil dogs and grotesque morris dances xxx

Hi Rima, thanks so much for sharing! I was blown away by the automatons - truly very inspiring. And I just discovered the Chronophage earlier today, so I'm not surprised at all to discover that you had already heard of it. Hmmmmm... how to get to the UK?

Absolutely amazing! I love all the mechanics. It's just so facinating. I love such orignal minds. I wish I could go see. Thanks for sharing as in my little corner of the world I would miss such things otherwise.

Amazing. Totally looks like your work in moving, three-dimensions. How wonderful and surreal for you to be able to immerse yourself in it in person like that! Thanks for sharing such enchanting, other-worldly art.

This is right up my street, so to speak. I intend, someday not too distant, to visit the north and I think I'll continue going until I reach the doorstep of this amazing place. Thank you so much for sharing it with us all.

About Me

Rima Staines is an artist using paint, wood, word, music, animation, clock-making, puppetry & story to attempt to build a gate through the hedge that grows along the boundary between this world & that. Her gate-building has been a lifelong pursuit, & she hopes to have perhaps propped aside even one spiked loop of bramble (leaving a chink just big enough for a mud-kneeling, trusting eye to glimpse the beauty there beyond), before she goes through herself.

Always stubborn about living the things that make her heart sing, Rima’s houses have a tendency to be wheeled. She currently dwells in an old cottage on top of a hill on the edge of Dartmoor with her beloved, Tom, & their big-hearted, ice-eyed lurcher, Macha.

Rima’s inspirations include the world & language of folktale; faces of people who pass her on the street; folk music & art of Old Europe & beyond; peasant & nomadic living; magics of every feather; wilderness & plant-lore; the margins of thought, experience, community & spirituality; & the beauty in otherness.

Crumbs fall from Rima’s threadbare coat pockets as she travels, & can be found collected here, where you may join the caravan.